Tag: Founding Fathers

The Senate Trial begins tomorrow…..all the jurors have been sworn in and signed the oath….time to get down to business.

Is Trump guilty or not?

I care not this series of posts are about the impeachment process not some silly notion of tribalism.

An easy answer for those that look for easy answers…..for those that want to pass on the whining of politicians and pundits.

Yes one of the purposes for the process of impeachment is to remove the president from office (a process that has not been very effective by the way)…..but it is NOT the only purpose for the process.

Time to look t the Founding Fathers and their opinions and thoughts on the process need to be brought out…..

As Congress considers formal charges of impeachment against President Donald Trump, they should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders explained that impeachment was intended to have many important purposes, not just removing a president from office.

A critical debate took place on July 20, 1787, which resulted in adding the impeachment clause to the U.S. Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest and probably wisest delegate at the Convention, said that when the president falls under suspicion, a “regular and peaceable inquiry” is needed.

…statements made at the Constitutional Convention explaining that the Founders viewed impeachment as a regular practice with three purposes:

To remind both the country and the president that he is not above the law

To deter abuses of power

To provide a fair and reliable method to resolve suspicions about misconduct.

If one is to debate or bitch about the process of impeachment then maybe a little knowledge would help……(Hahahaha…..I know in the era of mass stupid knowledge the last thing these mental midgets need)…..

Does anyone know what the term “oversight” means?

(Look it up…I am sure you can use Google by now)

The Founders were concerned that there could be an “imperial president” if there were no oversight…..

I have a problem…I do not care whether Trump is convicted or not, my problem is the oath taken by people that have already made up their minds…..this will be a joke for late night TV….not a political exercise.

And then there is everybody’s hero, George Washington…..a person that I do not think should be held to such high esteem…..he should be known as the first president but then that is about all the accolades I will give him.

But to me the highest form of political cowardice was when Washington, the man not the city, ignored Paine’s pleas for help when he was arrested in Paris in 1793.

On December 28, 1793, at the height of the Reign of Terror in France, Paris police rousted Thomas Paine in the cold hours before dawn, arrested him as a “foreign conspirator” and locked him in a wet, 10-by-8-foot cellar in Luxembourg Prison. The only light came from cracks in a boarded-up window. Paine was sure the guillotine awaited him.

Citizen Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense helped ignite the American Revolution, was an enthusiastic early supporter of the French Revolution. He received a hero’s welcome when he arrived in Paris in 1792 and was even granted honorary French citizenship and a seat in the National Convention, the body charged with writing a constitution for the new republic. But Paine angered Maximilien Robespierre and other Jacobin extremists when he urged the Convention to spare the life of the deposed French king, Louis XVI. Instead, Jacobins brandished the king’s severed head in front of a cheering crowd. Then they proceeded to round up thousands of suspected counterrevolutionaries who, Paine observed, fell “as fast as the guillotine could cut their heads off.” Now they’d come for him, too.

Of course there are some the dispute the reason why Washington refused to help Paine…..I have heard many from religious to economic…..it matters NOT to me….Paine was the soul of the Revolution and in as such this country owed him all its support and assistance when needed.

But instead it was possibly divine providence that saved Paine….matters not for it WAS NOT the president of the United States.

Since the US Constitution is in the news almost daily….let’s look at one of the boyz of Summer that gave us the document……

For instance one of the founding fathers, John Hancock…..what do you know beyond his famous signature?

John Hancock and his signature are two of the best-known elements related to the Declaration of Independence. But how much do you know about the former president of the Continental Congress?

On May 24, 1775, Hancock was named as the presiding officer over the Second Continental Congress, which was meeting in Philadelphia to discuss the military threat posed by the British. A little more than a year later, Hancock was the first to sign the document declaring independence.

Here are 10 facts about the man whose name is now synonymous with impressive signatures.

1. Hancock was a wealthy guy. He was from Massachusetts and his family had money, which he inherited when his uncle died. In fact, Hancock may have been the richest man in New England when he inherited a shipping fortune.

2. He was a bright student. Young Hancock graduated from Harvard at the age of 17. He was also a quick learner in the business world.

3. Hancock should have been a Loyalist, but he wasn’t. With his wealth and social standing, Hancock should have been a leading member of an elite group that didn’t want independence. Instead, he sympathized with people like John and Samuel Adams, who were patriots.

4. John Hancock, smuggler? Well, he may have been an importer, too, but goods like tea that arrived in New England on Hancock’s ships may have escaped paying a duty. The suspicions led the British to seize Hancock’s ship, Liberty, which started a riot. John Adams got Hancock off the hook from the smuggling charges.

5. Hancock also had a role in the Boston Tea Party incident. While Hancock wasn’t on a ship tossing tea overboard, he was at meetings when outrage was vented at the British. He riled up the crowd with a famous statement: “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.”

6. The British really didn’t like Hancock. The British troops that set out to Lexington and Concord in 1775 may have been hunting for Hancock and his friend, John Adams, as well as for military supplies that were stored for militia use. Hancock had to be talked out of taking the battlefield against the redcoats. And his arrest was ordered by the British after the battles.

7. Hancock was a behind-the-scenes force early in the American Revolution. Hancock raised money for the Revolution, he helped secure troops, and he played a role in getting naval forces organized. But a homesick Hancock left Congress in 1777 to return to Massachusetts.

8. He was the longtime governor of Massachusetts. Hancock was elected in 1780 to lead his state and was its governor for most of the remaining years of his life. He was immensely popular in his home state.

9. Hancock wasn’t at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hancock had health issues by 1787 and wasn’t in the Massachusetts delegation. But he played a key role in his state’s ratification of the Constitution, when he overcame his own objections about the lack of a Bill of Rights to urge its passage.

10. What’s the deal with the signature? It’s not true that Hancock signed the Declaration in a big way to taunt the King of England. The legend goes that Hancock stated that “King George will be able to read that!” In reality, Hancock was the first to sign in a matter fitting for the president of the Congress. And only one other person was in the room when he signed it, unlike in that famous painting that shows a gaggle of patriots witnessing the event. Hancock did take a big risk: His signature was evidence of treason if things didn’t go well in the war!

They do not make Americans like that any more…..or should I say American politicians?

I know a few in that list is a bit of a stretch but it all comes down to interpretation

The Constitution itself is the crisis that we keep hearing about in the MSM and from those pundits with an agenda……

To no small degree, “our” (their) archaic Constitution is the constitutional crisis. It helped hatched the Trumpenstein and it is helping keep it in office perhaps for five or, God help us, more years. The way to get rid of this terrible tyrant is through a mass and prolonged popular rebellion that includes among its demands the call for a new national charter, one that includes among its provisions (just for starters) the abolition of anti-democratic absurdities like the Electoral College, the disenfranchisements of Puerto Rico and Washington DC, the provision of two Senators to each state regardless of its population size, the lifetime appointment of Supreme Court Justices, and the eviction of private money from public elections. The whole damn system that spat up/shat out Malignant Orange is guilty as Hell. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote not long before his death, “the real issue to be faced” beyond superficial matters is “the radical reconstruction of society itself.”

Then we have those that say “not to worry this to shall pass”…..I say WRONG!

Even a former GOP Representative Justin Amash has made his thoughts known….

Independent Rep. Justin Amash said on Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony to House Intelligence Committee hearing on impeachment was the latest evidence against President Donald Trump that—if Trump was a regular person facing a grand jury—would result in certain indictment.

Amash, who left the Republican party in July 2019 over Trump’s behavior and the refusal of GOP leaders to hold him accountable, pointed out on Twitter that “impeachment in the House is an indictment.”

“If this were an ordinary prosecution, there’s no grand jury in America that would not return an indictment on the facts and evidence presented in these hearings,” said Amash.

We celebrate the founding of our country on Independence Day on 04 July….but all most people know is they have the day off and BBQ and drink beer.

Personally, I think the day we should celebrate is 17 September, Constitution Day, because it was when it became official….the US became a republic.

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, and “recognize all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens.”

This commemoration had its origin in 1940, when Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing and requesting the President to issue annually a proclamation setting aside the third Sunday in May for the public recognition of all who had attained the status of American citizenship. The designation for this day was “I Am An American Day.”

In 1952 Congress repealed this joint resolution and passed a new law moving the date to September 17 to commemorate “the formation and signing, on September 17, 1787, of the Constitution of the United States.” The day was still designated as “Citizenship Day” and retained its original purpose of recognizing all those who had attained American citizenship. This law urged civil and educational authorities of states, counties, cities and towns to make plans for the proper observance of the day and “for the complete instruction of citizens in their responsibilities and opportunities as citizens of the United States and of the State and locality in which they reside.”

In 2004 under Senator Byrd’s urging, Congress changed the designation of this day to “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day” and added two new requirements in the commemoration of this Day. The first is that the head of every federal agency provide each employee with educational and training materials concerning the Constitution on September 17th. The second is that each educational institution which receives Federal funds should hold a program for students every September 17th.

This day is far more indicative of the nation that we were to become than the laundry list of grievances against England……

Then there is another document we should be celebrating……

The year was 1789.

And it was a very good year.

A writing of a document that is overshadowed by another document and is part of that document, the Constitution….that document would become known as the Bill of Rights…..

A list of the amendments that would define the society in which we now reside…..but is it as it should be today?

It’s been 230 years since James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, and what do we have to show for it?

Nothing good.

In America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document, but the reality of life in the American police state tells a different story.

“We the people” have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.

There are some (I admit that I am one as well) that feel that the DoI is not a document that should be revered ……basically because it is a racist, sexist and bigoted document…..it is an important one that should be taught in its entirety.

It is painful to write about the shortcomings of the Declaration of Independence. The historic document was officially approved by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 — a mere two days after the Lee Resolution formally declared the American colonies to be independent of the British Empire. Because the American colonists ultimately prevailed in their revolution against King George III, the document has been immortalized as one of the opening salvos in the ongoing fight for human freedom that continues to this very day. Without this seminal text, every social justice movement that has followed would never have come to pass.

Yet despite its overwhelmingly positive impact on history, the Declaration of Independence was also a product of its time — and bears some of the shortcomings of its era, including sexism, racism and prejudice against Native Americans. Here is a look at the events leading up to the creation of that document, as well as involved in its actual signing, which one must inspect for a more rounded look at this period in history:

Again I would like to stress that this is a great nation with great people and that the entire history should be taught not just the glowing items that are cherry picked…..when this is done it becomes revisionist and finally a LIE.

This is a continuation of the series written by Maj. Danny Sjursen about the history about this country …the creation, the war, the battles, the history.

It is the 1780’s and the war is winding down and then Founding Fathers are looking to the creation of a government to run the land that just liberated from England.

Part 7 of “American History for Truthdiggers.”

The Brits Are Gone: Now What?

“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots.” —Elbridge Gerry, delegate to the Constitutional Convention (1787)

It has become, by now, like American scripture. We all know the prevailing myths, history as written by the winners. Virtuous American patriots, having beaten the tyrannical British, set out to frame the most durable republican government in the history of humankind. The crowning achievement came when our Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in 1787 to draft an American gospel: the Constitution. The war had ended, officially, in 1783.